The New Booker Prize Winner 
Posted on October 22nd, 2022

Senaka Weeraratna 

The new Booker Prize winner appears to be a Empire Loyalist or one with multiple loyalties. Like Arundhati Rao, another Booker Prize winner, who is Anti Majoritarian to the core and whose pastime is repeatedly attacking Hinduism and other Sanatana Dharma religions. To the vast majority of Hindus Arundhati Rao is a traitor to the cause of India.

While Sri Lanka and Sri Lankans all over the world would be happy to note that a Sri Lankan born writer had won the Booker Prize, which is a great honour for the country, they would not be so happy to note that the same

Prize winner had no hesitation in calling Sri Lanka a failed State.

He also referred to ‘ race – baiting’ in Sri Lanka. A totally unnecessary remark. This is understandable. 

To win laurels from the British Raj and their agents e.g. Booker Prize organizers, a contestant for the Booker Prize has it would seem required to engage in self deprecating statements.

Salmon Rushdie, a Booker Prize winner did the same. He ridiculed the religion that he was born to and its practices. Later he published ‘Satanic Verses’  attacking the Prophet to the applause of the Western media who defended it on the ground of ‘ free speech’. 

Winning Prizes from the colonial masters in return for defaming your own country and your own people is a mean thing. It can lead to foreigners and tourists developing a negative view of us which is undeserving. 

As a matter of deep seated practice the Booker Prize is never awarded to African and Asian writers with decolonized minds and to those who speak against ‘ White Racism’, and had supported the freedom fighters and the vast anti colonial movements that finally led to the ending of Western colonial rule and illegal occupation of Asia. 

Writers have a right to space to write and share their views while being considerate to the sensitivities of the readers. In this instance the writer went beyond  expectations in his acceptance speech and shamed himself by unduly condemning the political happenings in his own country of birth. That is not the forum to run down one’s own country. An Englishman can be expected not to stoop so low in the midst of a foreign gathering.

Senaka Weeraratna 

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